Screw presses are well known in the art. They are conventionally used for removing soluble and dispersible materials from products, for example, excess fluid from paper pulp. It is to be noted that, for concision purposes, the example of the paper pulp will be used throughout the present disclosure. This should not be construed as a limitation of the present invention.
The principle of operation of conventional screw presses is believed to be well known to those skilled in the art and will therefore only be briefly described herein.
A screw press is basically an endless screw provided with a conical shaft that compresses the pulp as it moves from an inlet to an outlet. The endless screw is enclosed in a body that is provided with a screened surface allowing the excess fluid to be expelled from the pulp.
The throughoutput of screw presses is usually controlled by the rotational speed of the endless screw. However, there are limits to this control since the rotational speed of the endless screw must be sufficiently slow to thereby allow the excess fluid to flow through the screened body. This is a drawback of the conventional screw presses since it lowers the efficiency of the unit by unduly limiting the top rotational speed of the endless screw.